We had three interviews on Saturday and those will all be separate articles along with the bands' respective live reviews but here are the live reviews for a few bands we didn't interview, starting off with Orion:

Before the festival I had only heard Orion‘s EP Where Whales Go To Die once and while they did get extra points for using one of my all time favorite monologues as the intro I felt like something was missing from their otherwise impressive music, vocals. So imagine my surprise when I walked to the arena, running a little late, and in the distance I heard vocals reminiscent of Brandon from Incubus so when I walked in I double checked the schedule and found out that I was indeed listening to Orion with vocals. Saying that the vocals added a lot is an understatement but I still want to emphasize that the music was already strong on its own. The self-proclaimed ambient metal group brought what you'd expect from that description but they did it very well. Grooves were groovy and the chugs were hard, all was well in Tech Fest land and Orion was a great way to kickstart the third day. Fun fact: After staying the entire set I got a big hug from one of the guitarists for catching his ear plug when it fell out during his venture into the crowd.Orion's EP Yugen (which has vocals), can be bought from their official website and streamed on Youtube:

Next up was the Bellerophon Project, an instrumental band from Germany. I'll let you play "count the strings" while you look at the following picture:

Two 8 string guitars and a 9 string bass with LED's (I think) in the fretboard? Pretty badass if you ask me, but it's pretty much worthless unless they're doing something worthwhile with all those strings so let's delve into the music shall we?First of all, TBP describe their music as "...progressive and educational metal music for live shows and workshops" and I think it's a pretty apt description. It's technical, it was a delight watching every one of them play and despite my recent difficulties enjoying instrumental music their set was much more enjoyable for me than Felix Martin's set on the previous day. Although at times it did feel a bit like a workshop it didn't hurt the performance much, the songs felt like actual songs and the interludes/synth sounds (played as a backing track) gave the songs an extra layer which was very welcome. I think I would have enjoyed it a bit more if I had been a little more familiar with their material beforehand as I had only heard one song before and only once at that. After giving their EP a quick listen I could recognize a few riffs and interludes that I remember liking at the show so I'd recommend listening to it a few times before seeing them.

Apparently the band only consists of one guitarist and a drummer in the studio but I'm hoping they give the two live members a chance on future material as they seemed more than capable to fill the vacant spots. A friend of mine described them as "the closest thing to Animals As Leaders" and after listening to the EP a bit more and seeing them live I get what he means although they luckily have a sound of their own. If they keep up the good work I can see them going far within the world of instrumental metal (instrumetal?) and if they were able to successfully add vocals it would open up an even larger market for them. If you guys read this then please don't settle for the first friend that goes "I can growl.", ultra technical bands with great vocals are too rare for bands like The Bellerophon Project to settle for a monotonous guttural growler if indeed you ever decide to add vocals.

The next band I saw was Acoda. I had listened to their album once through on Bandcamp before coming to the festival and I was pretty impressed.There was some great interplay between the heavy and the soft sides of their music so I was quite excited to see them perform it live. I was expecting to enjoy it but honestly I was blown away. Their energy was contagious, the music was performed flawlessly and each of the three vocalists (who also handle guitars and bass) has a strong enough voice to lead a band on their own. Acoda were just off tour with Now, Voyager (interview and live review coming soon) and a couple of them were wearing Now, Voyager merch. Now, Voyager, in turn, wore Acoda merch and while I always love seeing bands support each other like that the main reason I'm mentioning this is because I feel like the bands go together really well. Acoda are like the metalcore equivalent of what Now, Voyager are to mathcore and, given that I'm a big fan of Now, Voyager, that's big praise in my book.

If you get a chance to see them live, do it, even if you don't, buy their album. It's well worth the asking price.

Following Acoda were Now, Voyager but considering that we've got an interview with them we decided to dedicate a separate post to them so without further ado I give you Maxi Curnow:

I have already made my love for Maxi's STEM album clear in a previous blog so it shouldn't come as a surprise that I arrived early to stand in the front and take in the glorious, non-repeating piece of music he was to perform with the help of Mike Malyan on drums and Chris Gregson on bass. Some very unfortunate sound difficulties stopped it from being all it could but it was still a heroic performance especially when you keep in mind that they had two days to practice for the gig. All three of them did a great job getting the music across and Maxi pulled off singing and playing some pretty complex parts like a champ. I'd love to hear it again without the technical difficulties but even with those in place it was a fantastic show well worth watching.

A couple of things worth noting: 1. Mike had his first (of three across the day) drum malfunctions in the beginning of the set, while unfortunate, I was glad that it happened then instead of in the middle of a song.

2. Maxi used three different guitars during the set and they were all gorgeous. The Algorithm and Monuments will get their own posts with live reviews and interviews so that leaves only one artist we saw on Saturday, the most tech, least metal act on the bill this year: Jon Gomm.

Jon Gomm is on a mission from God.

From the first time Jon Gomm affected the earth's gravitational pull causing my jaw to hit the floor I have had a hard time getting over his amazingness so I don't think I have a single bad thing to say about his performance. Musically he brought it in spades and in between songs he was charming, funny and insightful. My favorite comment of the night was in response to a fan shouting that his guitar drumming workshop needed "more cowbell", Jon simply replied "This is not the internet." Going through songs both new and old he had the crowd mesmerized from the first note to the last and I'm pretty sure that the only way he could have gotten more love from the audience would have been with a surprise appearance by Dan Tompkins in Ain't Nobody.

So that wraps up Saturday quite nicely until the bigger interviews come up but I wanted to take this opportunity to give a shout out to the bands I missed at the festival due to other engagements (interviews, eating, etc.) because the overall quality of music there truly was magnificent. I heard that Meta-Stasis played to very few people which I find sad both because their new song rips pretty hard and because apparently their keyboardist looks like the scariest Venetian clown I've ever seen. I heard part of their set on my way to an interview and it sounded really good. They have a crowdfunding campaign going on right now so if you enjoyed them at the festival or want to check them out here is the campaign: